


The Longest Summer (Part 1/?)

by charvill1981



Series: The Longest Summer [1]
Category: The X-Files, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), The X-Files: I Want To Believe (2008)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, MSR, Pre-Season/Series 10, Pre-X-Files Revival, post iwtb, post-IWTB, pre-Revival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:26:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charvill1981/pseuds/charvill1981
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the summer of 2013 and things are not looking good for Mulder's marriage....oh, no wait, that's just according to David Duchovny ;) <br/>Anyway, this is that story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Longest Summer (Part 1/?)

The sweat dripped down the middle of his bare back, a fresh shade of red burned atop the deep brown he had attained over the seemingly endless summer. He dabbed at his forehead with the rag he had remembered to bring this time and steered the mower carefully around the bed of red parade roses she had planted under the shade of the oak tree.

 

They had lived on that property for nearly a decade, and every spring they had joked about starting a farm or, at the very least, a garden. But they had never followed through with it until this year.

 

> One morning, after another tearful plea for him to get out of his office for a few hours, she had left for the hospital. Hiding behind the dusty white curtains of the room he had turned into a nest, disgust built in the pit of his stomach as he watched her looking in the driver-side visor mirror to wipe her eyes before driving away. With a determination he hadn’t felt in years, he had gotten in their beat up blue pickup, headed down to the closest nursery, and purchased as many pallets of as many different kinds of flowers and boxes of vegetable seeds, tools, and fertilizer as he could fit in the truck bed.
> 
>  
> 
> When she had gotten home that evening, he met her at her car and pulled her, their fingers entwined, out to the larger of the two sheds on their property.
> 
>  
> 
> “Close your eyes, Scully.”
> 
>  
> 
> He had grinned when she gave him “the eyebrow”, but agreed to his request. Sliding each of the two large vinyl doors to their sides, he had moved behind her and gently pushed her forward. The smell of fresh flowers had been overpowering as they walked into the large, dark space.
> 
>  
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> “Can I open them now?” she had asked, even as he watched her subtly sniffing the air.
> 
>  
> 
>  “Yes,” he’d replied and yanked on the chain light above their heads.
> 
>  
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> Then, she had gasped his name.
> 
>  
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> The smile on her face had reached into his heart, setting it alight in a way he hadn’t thought was possible any longer.

 

He finished mowing the front two acres and drove the tractor past the same pickup that had carried all those things into the same shed he pulled in front of now. He grabbed the red towel, now stained with white patches of salt where his sweat had dried, stiffening the terrycloth material, and dried his arms and hands before pulling his ear buds out so he could leave his phone in the cup holder. Hopping down from the machine onto the dusty, cracked ground, he marched inside to grab the half empty gas can to refill the tank. After filling it up and making sure the lid was sealed shut, he walked back inside, relishing the shade after the sweltering heat of the afternoon.

 

Normally this time of year, he would have done this early in the morning before it got too hot. Normally, he would have let the grass get a little higher, a little more out of control before leveling it in the middle of July.

 

_And, normally on a Friday,_ he thought as he grabbed the bottle of sunblock from the weathered shelf and stared up at the house from the protection of his dark cavern _, Scully would be at work right now_.

 

He turned his back to the light and squeezed a liberal amount of the white, oily lotion into the palm of his hand and tried to think about anything but what she was doing in their house at that moment. He rubbed the sticky liquid into the skin of his shoulders, wincing at the burn he could already feel there. Pulling the excess down his arms, over the skin of his forearms and hands, he realized his torso was still too sweaty for the lotion. He groaned at the idea of leaving the cool shed and, grudgingly, walked back out to the tractor to grab the towel, shielding his eyes as the bright light assaulted them.

 

“Mulder.”

 

He froze where he was, staring down at her toes, exposed in the cheap pair of black flip flops she liked to wear on her off days in the summer. It was one of the rare times she didn’t have on heels that made her appear so much taller than she was.

 

“I was hoping I’d catch you before you started on the back.”

 

Brushing past without regarding her further, he glanced around the tractor to find where he had left the towel. There was nothing on the seat or the footrests.

 

“Looking for this?” she asked, wiping the soft part of the cloth between his shoulder blades.

 

_Don’t do this, Scully_ , he said silently, a phantom pain ripping through his chest. _Please, please don’t do this._ He stood tall and forced himself to turn around, the cloth now pressed between their bodies as she refused to give him even an inch.

 

“I was, yeah,” he answered, gazing down at his own reflection in her oversized tortoise shell sunglasses. The pathetic sight had him averting his eyes, and that was when he saw the small pot in her other hand.

 

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat and he shifted from his left foot to his right. “Does this mean,” he swallowed again to clear his throat, “you, uh, you got everything then?”

 

Her hand dropped back to her side as she nodded, and he wondered if this was hurting her one tenth as much as it was him.

 

“Thank you,” she said so softly he could barely make out the words.

 

“For what?”

 

Her chin quivered as she looked down at the ground, rubbing a line between them in the dirt with the toe of her sandal. “For letting me take some of the flowers.”

 

He stared at the crown of her head, the strawberry blonde strands shining while a million things he wanted to say evaporated away like the sweat upon his skin. Hands on his hips, he gripped the jersey material of his basketball shorts, clinging to the fibers to keep himself from grabbing her and running back into the house to lock her away so she could never, ever leave him.

 

She tilted her head, one eyebrow raised in curiosity at his silence. He had never been one to keep quiet in a situation like this and it scared her.

 

Even as she hid behind the glasses, he could read her concern. _How many times had they been here? How many times could he watch her walk away from him?_ He imagined going back into that house, knowing she wouldn’t be coming home to him anymore. His ears began to ring as a steady stream of expletives sounded in his head.

 

His hands trembled on his hips as he felt his control slipping, and he violently turned away from her. “You shouldn’t have come out here, Scully. You need to…JUST GO!”

 

She gasped at his sudden outburst and the clay pot slipped from her hand, cracking even as the sound of it was muffled by the hard ground beneath their feet.  Looking down at the broken remains of the only memory of this house she was planning to take with her, she felt the tears finally breaking free.

 

Taking a deep breath, she finally confessed, “I came out here because I wanted…because I _want_ you to stop me, Mulder. I don’t wanna go.”

 

He pounded his fist so hard against the seat of the tractor that if it hadn’t been padded, he may have broken his hand. _She’s killing me_ , he thought before realizing the irony: if he died right then he wouldn’t have to watch her walk away. And then he remembered it was those kinds of thoughts that had gotten them here in the first place.

 

He wasn’t sure how many seconds had gone by when he felt the electricity that always happened when her presence grew close. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, his chest heaving under the exertion of holding himself there when instinct told him to fight or take flight, but neither were options.  He expected her touch to be hesitant, wary; to place a hand on his back or an arm around his waist. His eyes widened when, instead, she pushed his arm out of the way so she could press herself into the tiny space between where he stood and the large red tractor he faced.

 

With no shirt to pull on, she put one hand behind each of his ears, his face, rough with stubble and sweat,  in her palms, and pulled him down to be devoured. He growled as he let her inside, their tongues finding one another as she used the tractor footrest to climb him. When she wrapped her legs around his waist, he cupped her ass to carry her two steps to the left, pressing her against the hot vinyl siding of the shed.

 

She pulled her mouth from his to nip her way down his chin to his neck, licking the salt and sweat of the man to whom a psychiatrist had all but told her she was addicted.

 

> “Dana, I know I don’t have to tell you this,” the doctor began.
> 
>  
> 
> “But?”
> 
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> “From everything I know about you and your relationship with your partner—“. The doctor didn’t miss the wince on her face at the use of that word. “The dependency there, given just how much his depression has worsened since December…living together under one roof isn’t allowing him the space he needs to learn how to live with this disorder.”
> 
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> She had nodded then, having read similar things in the books she had studied in the past few months about endogenous depression. They were each other’s crutch. And, apparently, having her there was keeping him from meeting new people and building relationships.
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> The doctor, who was also a longtime coworker of hers at the hospital, pushed her long blonde hair behind her ear as she leaned forward and covered the other woman’s hands with her own. “It doesn’t mean forever, Dana. And, I think it would help _both_ of you.”
> 
>  

Sucking his earlobe between her parched lips, she whispered, “Did you really think you could hide out here, Mulder? That I wouldn’t look for you before—“. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out as he attempted to pierce the denim covering her center with his rigid erection.  

 

The only blood that hadn’t fled to his crotch felt like it was pounding in his ears as he grinded against her. _God, was not wanting to lose someone, to not be apart from them really so wrong? Was her presence really making his condition worse?_ “How can _this_ ” _\--_ he thrusted against her for emphasis-- _“_ be wrong, Scully? Tell me.”

 

He stepped back and let her slide to the ground, keeping one arm around her waist and then began to move them towards the house.

 

“No, Mulder!” His shoulders fell as he looked at her, rejection quickly washing the hunger in his eyes away. She shook her head. “I can’t go back in there after what I just went through.”

 

He nodded and dropped his arm to his side.

 

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing herself not to back down. When she opened them again, her gaze was fierce. She pulled off her shirt and her bra in one motion before pushing her shorts and underwear to the ground. Mulder watched her in complete shock as she stepped out of the discarded items and gripped the waistband of his shorts before pulling them down to his ankles.

 

“Get on the tractor, Mulder.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, let me know! Feedback is the best form of currency ;)   
> Also, you can find more of my works here on the Archives and at Tumblr ( https://www.tumblr.com/blog/charvill1981 )


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